Partly for this reason, the majority of section leaders are drawn from Harvard's graduate schools. According to Susan Lewis, director of the Core, most of those staffing Core sections come from Harvard's graduate schools, specifically from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).

She says that in 1986-87, the last year for which figures are available, 332--or 85 percent of those teaching in the Core--were registered graduate students at Harvard. Of these, 88 percent were from GSAS, with the remaining 12 percent drawn from other graduate schools.

But difficulties arise when there are not enough specialists to match the number of TFs needed.

"One of the problems that I'm sure we're not alone in having is that the demand for sections is higher than the number of qualified teaching fellows at the graduate schools," says Henderson Professor of the Psychology of Personality Brendan A. Maher, the newly appointed GSAS dean.

"Consequently, we have to get them from outside our departments or sometimes from MIT, and while they may be perfectly good, we don't have the records on them that we have on our own."

Chris Thomas, a graduate student who teaches Literature and Arts C-14, "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization," put it another way. "You simply aren't going to find 23 to 24 Homeric specialists in GSAS."

"Terrible Situation'

Jim Wilkinson, director of the Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning, says the current job market has caused a reduced pool of graduate students from which to select TFs.

"It's just a terrible job situation out there, and we simply have less people in the graduate schools," says Wilkinson. "The alternative is to limit the size of courses, and that's something a lot of people don't want."

"Consequently," he adds, "we have to do things like pull faculty from other departments, and while I know it sometimes results in a level of teaching we don't like to see, that's some of the reason for the Danforth Lab."

The crunch for sections leaders with expertise also means that most graduate students at Harvard are tapped to teach courses. Some--who might not otherwise lead sections because of poor command of English--are asked to teach because there is no one else, or they may seek section jobs in order to subsidize their tuition.

According to Pilbeam, Harvard's financial aid program for graduate students, "while not stated in a formal sense, comes out to [guaranteed teaching positions for them] in almost all cases."

"Some graduate students receive offers of support contingent on their doing some teaching, and the result is that most graduate students finance their time by doing some teaching--be it in tutorials or sections," he says.

Planning Problems

In addition, professors say, shopping period creates problems in planning sections. Because course enrollment figures are not known in advance, additional teaching fellows must often be found after the term starts.